International businesses partner up to combat child labour

Alice Cooke
· 08 February, 2017

Food and agriculture company Cargill has partnered with the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), to expand their joint actions on child labour in Côte d’Ivoire.

ICI, a leader in child protection in cocoa growing, is now helping to establish a monitoring system in Cargill’s cocoa supply chain to identify and protect children, especially those involved in child labour.

The innovative model for child labour prevention and response, called Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS), allows Cargill to go a step further in its efforts to eradicate child labour and is based on best practices developed by ICI.

The system will be embedded in the monitoring and evaluation program for the Cargill Cocoa Promise, the company’s responsible and sustainable cocoa program, and will be piloted this year in eight farmer cooperatives in Côte d’Ivoire. This will reach nearly 7,000 cocoa farming households.

The system will help Cargill identify and understand incidences of child labour, so that appropriate remediation activities can be undertaken.

Taco Terheijden, sustainability director at Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate, said: “At Cargill, we recognise that we cannot tackle child labour in cocoa-farming communities on our own. Working alongside technical experts like the ICI helps us learn how to take a labour-monitoring system to scale in a complex, smallholder agricultural supply chain.”